The original game had a jungle level and a mountain level with plain old regular water that was rising, but there was also a mountain level where the hero was trapped between slowly descending water and a quicker Descending Ceiling. The idea was to use Rayman's hair-helicopter to cut through ropes tied to this ceiling so the weights attached to the ceiling would drop into the water, and the ceiling would stop descending before it pressed Rayman into the water and drowned him.

The infamous Labyrinth Zone "boss" for the original game was nothing more than you chasing Robotnik up one of these, water rising behind you with no air bubbles to save you if you lag behind. And lag you will, as the way is also lined with retracting spikes and fireball-throwing gargoyles. The game does show some mercy, however, as once you reach the top, Robotnik runs away, leaving Sonic to hit the end-of-zone animal cage and head for Star Light Zone. You ARE able to defeat him if you're good, though.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had a twist on this in Chemical Plant Zone. Mega Mack doesn't instantly kill Sonic, but Sonic can't breathe in it, so the further up you go, the worse it is when you fall, to the point where falling to places you could once survive is now your doom.

In the same game, Hill Top Zone, in addition to rising floors, also had rising lava.

Sonic & Knuckles has an interesting twist on this concept. In Sandopolis Act 2, there is a section where you must climb your way to the top quickly, lest you get crushed by rising sand (which acts as a solid surface for no explained reason). The twist is that the source of the sand is plugged up, until you bust it open yourself. You must do so, however, because it's impossible to reach the ledges above without the rising sand.

Near the end of Knuckles' version of Launch Base Zone, from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the water level rises, and you have to rush to avoid drowning.

Sonic Advance 3 has the boss for the Twinkle Snow Zone, which combines this with Platform Battle for extra frustration. Mercifully, the platforms don't fall until you jump off of them; just don't fall off (or get knocked off).

In the original Metroid, Brinstar did have acid lakes. Super Metroid, on the other hand, did not have them.

In Marathon 2: Durandal the fourth mission has you plunge down a lengthy pit and locate and destroy some controls in a geothermal power plant. Natrually the result is that the place is flooded with lava, so you're 'encouraged' to make best speed heading up and out. The final level, "All Roads Lead to Sol", has a similar lava escape.

Marathon Infinity does it again in "A Converted Church in Venice, Italy".

One level in the game modTempus Irae, "Mt Vesuvius II: Electric Boogaloo", is set in a volcano with rising lava, although slower than the above example.

Conker's Bad Fur Day offers an interesting take: One level features a large cylinder that suddenly starts to fill up with water, which wouldn't be a problem if not for the loose wires that seem to be hanging out of the walls, which instantly electrify the water on contact. To advance, the player needs to make it to a safe spot and cut the wires to make the water safe to swim in again, then get to another safe spot before the water rises enough to touch another wire, and repeat the process. Exactly how cutting off exposed wires prevents them from electrifying the water is not explained.

Notably, this is one of the most difficult levels in the entire game, because there is a wire right behind the first Context-Sensitive Button which many players have difficulty to spot in the first playthrough, so they may think they're safe with cutting down the wires ahead of them, but as they try to get across to the next platform... the water zaps them to death. All because of that tricky wire right behind you.

Also, later in the game, you have to outrun toxic waste while hurdling small pools of the same substance.

A few levels in New Super Mario Bros., including a fortress level with rising lava. There's a code that enables "Challenge Mode". When used on side-scrolling stages, it disables scrolling left, making the experience more like the first Super Mario Bros. game (as well as allowing you to occasionally get into an Unwinnable situation). In vertical-scrolling stages however, it turns falling off the bottom of the screen at any time into an instant death, making those vertically-scrolling stages into Rise To The Challenge levels that move at your own pace.

There is a lava one in Super Mario Galaxy, too. It's technically because of the ground sinking instead of the lava rising, but functionally it plays like any regular example. Then, you have to redo it with only one HP...

In the same game, there is another that is somewhere between this and Descending Ceiling. Mario is upside down to the player so it is hard to say whether the sand is the floor or the ceiling.

Stage 2-2 of Castlevania: Bloodlines has water steadily climbing. As an Auto-Scrolling Level, you're free to climb up beyond the camera. In the next stage, you find the enemy that causes the water to rise, and need to kill it before you drown.

Kid Icarus has all of the climbing levels (2/3 of the game) do this — falling off the bottom of the screen causes your death. Even if there would be a platform an inch below the screen.

Ice Climber on the NES did this rather lamely: the screen scrolled up as you climbed, and no matter what might have been below that floor before, if you fall off the screen you die.

The same goes for the Ice Climber themed stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee. In this case it's more like the other ones because it's auto-scrolling rather than only scrolling up as you climb (though climbing makes it go faster), but the frame of reference still determines where you die. Sometimes, just to confuse the player, the scrolling reverses, and you have to descend for your life. Not many people like to play on these levels.

Brawl replaced it with a merely rising Rumble Falls. But since it only goes up it has not received the hatred Icicle Mountain did.

One of the bosses in the Metal Slug series obliged you to dodge its various shots, outclimb it, and shoot it until it dies.

The Slug you get at the beginning is almost totally useless as well: not only can you not press jump and shoot at the same time or the slug explodes, but the speed is only fractionally faster than that of the boss, which means you have to constantly jump to avoid death.

Also, there's a level in the first game where you have to go up. The screen doesn't scroll automatically, but since the game doesn't allow you to backtrack, any piece of soil that was left behind gives way to Bottomless Pits.

Bionic Commando on the Game Boy Color included a level where you had to destroy a fuel station. Destroying the system controlling the station caused it to start filling with flaming fuel which would kill you if you touched it.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on the Sega Genesis had a level where destroying a computer caused the level to fill with a flaming liquid.

In Blackwater City in the first game, you have to outrun the rising water in a tunnel. Ratchet can both swim and hold his breath, but not for long, and gets realistically slowed down when swimming or wading. The only chance to get out before drowning is to keep ahead of the water. Annoyingly, not so long after this passage, he gets scuba gear...

The last of the Qwark vid-comics in Up Your Arsenal justifies this as you're outrunning rising acid.

Super Metroid's version of Norfair has several rooms where lava rises as soon as you enter. (Or in one case, as soon as you grab an upgrade at the far end.) There's also rising lava in part of the final Escape Sequence, but it's kind of redundant since you're already running to escape an exploding planet, and because it's at the end of the game, your suit's been upgraded enough that the lava doesn't restrict your movement, and you have so many spare energy tanks that the damage inflicted by the lava is negligible, so it's really only there to make you panic.

Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure is similar, except instead of water, the floor is replaced with a Mad Scientist's killing machine, which changes weapons as you race up the tower.

The freeware Platform Hell game Flood The Chamber consists of a large room that is slowly being filled with water. Touching the water results in an instant KO, forcing you to restart.

As with Ice Climber and Kid Icarus, in most vertical stages in the Contra series, you die if you touch the bottom of the screen. Same with most any Ratchet Scrolling vertical level.

In Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, one level involves Indy scrambling to reach the top floor of the Raven Saloon to avoid an ever-rising sea of flames. Said saloon is rather ridiculously tall.

Half-Life: Opposing Force had an early room where a faulty circuit pierces a tank of biowaste and then proceeds to blow large chunks out of the floor, eventually releasing a metal beam leading up to the maintenance walkway above while the waste level is still rising. The G-Man eventually opens a door leading out of the room.

The gameplay of Catherine is split between Vincent hanging out at the bar and his nightmares, which takes the form of him climbing a tower of blocks in order to outrun whatever monstrosity he's dreaming of.

During the Firewalker mission in Mass Effect 2, Shepard and his/her squad escape from a research station nested inside a volcano as lava rises. Thankfully, they're in a vehicle built to handle brutal environments.

The Alden's Tower level in Playstation All Stars Battle Royale will do this across three levels of the tower before arriving at the top: anyone unable to ascend is transported to a fixed spot higher in the stage, stunned for several seconds (perfectly defenseless for a Super kill). The developers had the sense to include blinking arrows as a warning.

The very end of the "Buster's Sky-Jinks" level in Buster Busts Loose. After Buster successfully retrieves the next episode's script from the Pinball Fortress, the fortress begins to collapse, which leaves him to run up the walls to escape. Of course, the bottom of the screen is fatal.

Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Montana's Movie Madness has two of these examples; the first is in the Samurai Saga, wherein Buster has to avoid a rising and falling flow of One-Hit Kill water in the bath house, and the second is in the Monster Movie, wherein Buster has to climb to the top of the stage to avoid rising flows of the same kind of water twice.

The Talos Principle: If you chose to climb the tower past the fifth floor, above the dark cloud, you enter a single long puzzle that takes you up several vertical levels. But that cloud begins to rise as you work through it, and failure to complete the puzzle before the cloud consumes you will cause you to die and restart the puzzle.

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